In new Netflix docuseries Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, a familiar story plays out. James is looking to make connections on a dating app, but can't–or won't–stick with anyone in particular, falling back on swiping whenever he needs a pick-me-up.

If you, too, always swipe before you date, check out porn on your phone, or wonder how to navigate the countless online sex and relationship choices available, you're living in the "sex-tech" new normal, according to Turned On. Packed with binge-worthy stories of online sex and relationships, the show takes a look at how the internet has changed our sex and dating culture. As a follow-up to the 2015 documentary film Hot Girls Wanted, the series, produced by Rashida Jones, Ronna Gradus, and Jill Bauer, covers everything from the pitfalls of Tinder to the camgirls who produce their own live-streamed solo shows.

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Jill Bauer, Rashida Jones, and Ronna Gradus at the Sundance Film Festival

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"Every single day our entire lives are subsumed by technology," Jones tells ELLE.com, "especially when it comes to sex and intimacy—it's hard to ignore." It's not hard to see how even intimate activities could fall prey to the easy highs of tech, considering how deeply they've permeated every other aspect of our lives. "You look at your phone and you're adding things to your Amazon cart," Jones says, "then you go over to your Tinder app and you're swiping through, you're shopping for clothes, and you're looking at memes...we just treat everything like these little icons. So you lose all that humanity that's behind the person in the picture because it's all designed to make us swipe through it."

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Despite the fact that swiping right is now such an integral part of romance, Bauer thinks we haven't looked closely enough at what it's doing to us. "People are totally engaged in social media and dating apps," she says, "but nobody's going in there and telling a person's story and how it affects other people. James is a perfect example." Bauer also points to the episode about Thom and Alice; Thom lives in Australia and considers himself in a relationship with Alice, a camgirl based in L.A. Alice has genuine affection for Thom, but she's also married, and when her online sex work with Thom turns into an in-person visit, the lines blur considerably.

So if we're increasingly looking online for intimacy, where are our relationships and sex lives headed? "If you look at the history of monogamy and relationships and sex and families," Jones says, "they've changed so many times. I just wish there was a way to communicate better about what it is that people want. I do think that we're probably training our minds to want different things."

Jones, Gradus, and Bauer also set out to explore how the porn industry is evolving now that it's so accessible—and mostly free—online. The episodes "Women on Top" and "Owning It" look at people working to change the way women are portrayed in porn, either by directing their own films or by producing their own live content. "I think it's about representation," Jones says, "Get people who make content to represent themselves better. I think if there were more women directors then we would probably see more of those movies. Women have a variety of things that they like and that turn them on, so to see that in a larger spectrum would be really great."

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At present, porn can still be alienating for performers; women sometimes feel pressured to perform outside of their comfort zone or act out degrading scenes. "It felt like something we're not really talking about," Jones says, "because on the one hand, you can't criticize anybody for any kind of sex choices they make as adults, and on the other hand we live in this hypocritical puritanical country. There's not a lot of room to have the conversation."

It might be embarrassing to discuss, but Jones thinks viewers do have the power to push for change: "It has to be about people en masse saying, 'I don't like the way that is. I do watch porn and I don't want to have to sort through all this abusive horrible stuff to just feel aroused, because that's not what arouses me.' It's going to take more people being upfront about their own personal preferences. It's a scary conversation, and it's very private, and I think it's the kind of industry that does benefit from the shadows, so we have to move it out of the shadows."

It has to be about people en masse saying, you know what, I don't like the way that is.

Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On doesn't just focus on women. It's clear that the unreality of porn sex can affect anyone involved. The episode "Money Shot" introduces Jax, a porn actor who says he sometimes struggles with performing and feels uncomfortable with the disconnected, punishment-style sex he's asked to have on film.

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And then there's the effect on viewers who might feel pressure to perform porn-style in their own sex lives. "In doing research," Gradus says, "we talked to a lot of college-age boys. We said, 'If you could watch an episode where a male porn star tells you that sometimes he can't perform, or sometimes he doesn't like the kind of sex he's being asked to have, would that help you out?' and they said, "Oh yeah, if we knew that the big stud we're watching on camera can't even get it up sometimes, then that would be awesome.'"

While the first season covers a lot of ground, Jones is hoping to make another. "There are so many more things to talk about," she says. "We wanted to talk more about race and we wanted to talk about sexual preference. We didn't get to talk about gay porn and we didn't talk about young people and sex ed. There are many, many stories we would love to tell."

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